If It Can't Be Done, Make It So
"Charge!"
"Get under the screens, and stay under them!"
The crew couldn't manage a decent pace just running with spears in their hands. Now they had the enormous screens they'd knocked together earlier balanced over their heads, and their attention was split worse than ever.
The gang leader and I were due for the last of the gear.
"You won't be able to see much now."
Glass scorched black in the fire. He had to shoot, so he had no hand to spare, and holding the panes fell to me. I set one in front of his eyes as he settled into his stance and raised the other before my own.
"Can you see all right?"
"It's pitch black."
"Working as intended."
If he could see clearly, there would have been no point in burning the glass.
"Think you can aim?"
"Of all the old-world maxims, my favorite is if it can't be done, make it so."
"That's not a maxim. That's an absurdity..."
"Hm?"
"If it can't be done, then we make it so. Obviously."
Right now, we really did have to make it so.
"Put your backs into it!"
"We're going in!"
They were still too slow. But their timing is something else.
Long years of drilling side by side would do that. Both spears arrived at the eyes at nearly the same instant, every single time. That timing was what mattered, and having nothing to fear on that front was the most encouraging part of the whole plan. If even that had failed, I would have called the operation off.
"Drive them in!"
Here it comes.
The moment the spears closed on the eyes of the thing, its true shape laid bare—
Shwack!
The same spinning strike of the tongue as before. Calling it an attack was generous. It was closer to a defense. The real attack started now.
Crack!
Its hide began to blaze in every color at once.
"Hide!"
"Eyes shut—!"
Even tucked beneath the screens, the crew's heads ducked of their own accord under the flood of light.
"Nngh..."
We had glass pried from antique frames, blackened in the fire, and held up to our eyes. They said people in the old world used the same trick before anyone thought to invent sunglasses. Even so, the light was so fierce that our eyes stung all the same.
"The... aim..."
Still, if all we had to endure was stinging eyes, we were lucky. Look at that light with nothing to shield you and you could go temporarily blind, lose your mind, or, at the worst, start shooting your own people. That was why the thing was classed as a troublesome boss-grade specimen even when it never moved.
Time to shoot.
I tapped the gang leader's shoulder with a fingertip.
Bang!
The cooling round left the barrel. A casing spat free. Through the scorched glass, I watched the creature.
While the tongue that had just cheerfully churned the air reeled itself back in—
Skreee!?
A hit, dead between the eyes. The light died in an instant. Its waist snapped backward, then straightened rigid again.
"Now!"
"Run!"
The brow was a weak point that could shock the brain even before you punched all the way through. Land a cooling round there and you could knock the thing senseless for a moment. The problem was what came after it woke.
Clack.
Special ammunition meant the next round took an age to chamber. That next round was a cooling round too.
A chameleon-type's eyes kept every trait of a reptile's. It could watch two different targets to either side at once, or lock both forward and pin whatever stood dead ahead without an inch of error.
"Run three times faster!"
There was another condition that made the thing abandon its turret state. The moment it judged that staying put meant it was finished, it left its ground.
Like now, when its brow takes a hit.
The instant it started to move, it lost the core trick of shifting the color of its hide. The area attacks went with it. That was the moment a terrifying reptile became an ordinary one.
Even then, charging in and tearing one or two people to shreds was still well within its power, and those one or two would be me and the gang leader. That was the problem.
Which is why we need the two spears.
"Going in!"
"Ram them home!"
"Stab!"
Both spears reached the eyes before the thing could come back to itself.
Shwack!
Go for the eyes, and it lashed out with its tongue without a second thought.
"We did it...!"
"Ghk—hold!"
"Grip tight!"
That motion was a chameleon-type's unconditional reflex, an instinct to protect the eyes, the weakest point on its exposed body. A remarkable area attack, striking every target inside a set radius in the blink of an eye. It had a fatal flaw, though. Once the tongue had lashed out, the creature could do nothing else until the tongue was fully reeled back in.
That's how we buy time. Strike the weak point between the eyes and drop it for a moment. In that gap, threaten the eyes and trigger the reflex. Use the time that bought to load a special round and aim, then strike the brow again. Repeat the whole sequence from outside the line the creature would tolerate a living thing crossing.
"Skreek... skreek..."
"Now!"
Bang!
Another freezing round.
Skreek!?
Hit between the eyes. Dead on.
"Nice shot!"
"Mm?"
By now the freeze ought to have reached all the way down.
"Load the next round!"
"Mm."
This was the last of it. An incendiary round in the chamber. Flash-heat the cooled hide, exploit the difference in stress to blow it apart, and the thin bone across the front of the brow would crack.
"How's our people's pace?"
"Worry about the reload. I'll handle the rest."
They were all running flat out, but—
"This is the last one!"
"Run like you're dying!"
Stamina was the problem. At this rate the thing would wake before they arrived.
This is the last pass. If it meant more speed, a different method was fair game.
"Push!"
"...?"
"Only three on each side hold the spear! Everyone else get behind them and push!"
Better, physically, to split the work than to have every man bear the weight and supply the thrust at once.
"Then if it swings at us, we won't be able to hold..."
"You don't have to hold! This is the last pass anyway! This time it's fine if you lose the spears!"
"R-right!"
"Only six hold them! The rest push from behind!"
"Push! Push, now!"
"Run!"
They picked up speed.
Clack. Loaded.
"Skreek..."
The thing's eyes were lining up toward the front. The gang leader's back, which had been rising and falling with his breath, went perfectly still.
"Push! Everything you've got!"
"Stab!"
"Throw your whole body into it!"
"Fly!"
"We die together!"
These people.
Thud!
They'd actually done it.
The chameleon-type must have been spent as well. I hadn't even dared to hope for this. Both enormous spears were buried to the haft in its eyes.
Shwack!
A beat too late, the tongue whipped out and sent the spears sailing, but—
"Waaaaah!!"
"You see that? We stabbed the fucker!"
"You piece of shit! Die already!"
It was a festival already.
"Light it up!"
Bang!
The gang leader kept his promise too.
Kyaaak!
The last round hit between the eyes as well. Its waist folded all the way back, and it went down. It hung there a moment, and then—
Crash!
Black blood fountained from the shattered brow. The tongue, drawn out long, never made it all the way back in.
Just as planned. They'd pulled it off, somehow. Every one of them wrung a shout from whatever stamina they had left. There wouldn't be a scrap of a meal left standing after this, either.
"Well, our Jeonggu? Performs nicely, doesn't it?"
The gang leader slung an arm over my shoulder.
"Huh? Well... hmm."
"It's all right, I guess?"
"For a second in the middle there, it felt like he was giving us orders."
Quick to loosen up, the lot of them.
"A little early to fall apart."
"Hm?"
Any moment now, probably.
Crack!
"What the—!"
The hide of the reptile, still bent double at the waist, flashed. Then white light poured out of it.
"The screens! Screens!"
"Ugh... What? We didn't finish it?"
The light died quickly. Wrapped in something like a cocoon, the chameleon-type hid itself from view.
"Everything went according to plan. That's it buying a little time."
"Buying time?"
"Time to patch the brow."
This was as far as the plan went. Crack the brow, and the thing's pattern changed.
"I told you. We weren't going to put out the kind of firepower that kills it. All I said was that it would learn to be afraid of Gwanghwamun."
"Then..."
"It'll lay a thin repair over the break and run. It'll have decided this place is dangerous. That's all we can do—scare it badly enough that it never comes sniffing around here again."
And getting this far was nothing to—
Rustle.
The gang leader suddenly rolled up his sleeve. Familiar gear came into view.
"...A folding shield?"
"Officer issue, old national army. And this—"
Another piece of gear came out of his bag. Folded flat, it opened into a sword, and the thing was familiar. Very familiar. I had trained with that sword often enough, back at the cabin.
"I'm fairly sure I told you earlier to take out every piece of gear you were carrying."
"Well, it wasn't exactly that I meant to hide it—"
"Wasn't exactly?"
"Where's the fun in showing every card you've got?"
This man. Could I trust him?
"So you've shown every card now. Is that what you're telling me?"
"That's hardly what matters. With this, we've got the firepower to take down a boss-grade, don't we?"
That folding sword was hunter-grade equipment, no less. Price aside, it wasn't the sort of thing money alone could buy. How had he gotten hold of it?
"Someone like you knows how to kill that thing, right? Tell me. This is the chance, isn't it?"
Kill a boss-grade specimen and you were guaranteed a haul of Cores. Of course the gang leader was greedy. But—
"Have you ever killed one?"
"Hm?"
"A boss-grade. I mean."
"I haven't, have I?"
"Then it's impossible."
Better this way.
"Hey—!"
Click. It fit the wrist perfectly.
"You...!"
"Give me the sword."
Better if I did it.
"Hurry. That thing's going to run any minute."
"Have you ever killed one?"
He didn't look inclined to hand it over, so I took it myself. Fortunately, he didn't seem inclined to snatch it back.
"No."
"...And?"
"Better that I take it—someone who at least knows the method—than try to teach it to someone who doesn't."
"I know you're clever, but a fight isn't won with your head alone. More than anything, your strength still isn't—hey! Hey!"
"Hah!"
"If it can't be done, make it so."
Son Jeonggu left it at that and broke into a run.
"Uh... Chief? What just happened?"
"I can't tell if that kid has no fear or too much confidence. He helped himself to my gear and took off."
"He's not just running away, is he? This isn't him lining up a slave escape?"
"...Surely not."
Clank!
In front of the cocoon, Son Jeonggu snapped the shield and the sword open.
"Oh. No. Looks like he's actually going to fight."
Striking the cocoon in turn with shield and sword, he started up it the way a man scales a cliff.
"That kid... He doesn't have the strength for this."
"He seemed plenty strong?"
"By your standards."
"Ugh."
"His strength and his speed both have endless room to grow. Put another way, that means he's still nowhere near enough. He isn't at a level where he could beat me one on one. Right now he's nothing but a clever little kid. And yet..."
The kid reached the top of the cocoon, stabbed at the surface a few times with the sword, and then simply went inside.
"He just looks like something's wrong with his head, doesn't he? I'm starting to think he can't feel fear at all."
"What in the world is he trying to—"
Shrrk!
A familiar impact. In an instant the cocoon tore apart and burst, and the chameleon-type showed itself again. Its long, dangling tongue was winding back into its mouth.
"Th-the slave!? There was nowhere for him to dodge...!"
"Look there."
The gang leader was pointing into the thing's mouth.
"Ah!"
Son Jeonggu, crouched inside the space he had braced open with sword and shield, was crawling out.
"How did he bait the tongue?"
"He punched through the roof of the mouth and jabbed the eyes. A hunter-grade sword can manage that easily enough."
"Oh!"
The creature was helpless while it reeled its tongue back in. In that span, Son Jeonggu climbed onto its brow.
"Did we... win?"
"Hsss. Guess it didn't take all that much strength after all."
"How many Cores do you get for killing one of these!?"
"We won, right? The slave's family too!"
"He's not a slave, he's Jeonggu, you idiot! He's got a name!"
"Since when do you call him by it?"
The instant Son Jeonggu drove the sword into the thing's brow—
"...If it can't be done, make it so."
The gang leader's own brow looked fit to split. So it really could be done.
Light flashed. It was not the light of the creature's hide.
It was the light of Cores, pouring down.